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Seagate late last week set what it claimed is the world record for the highest recording density achieved using a hard disk platter. The magic number: 421Gb per square inch. Crucially, Seagate said, the test used perpendicular recording heads and disc media based on production technology, so products based on the technology may not be far off.

In July, Toshiba announced a 2.5in notebook drive with an areal storage density of 178.8Gbpsi, to give you a feel for the densities offered by shipping hard drives.

Seagate touted its achievement as a testament to the endurance of hard drive technology, which has yet to be seen off by more recent developments such as Flash storage, the efforts of Flash makers like Samsung notwithstanding.

If Seagate can ship platters with a 421Gbpsi areal density, it would be able too offer iPod-friendly 1.8in drives of up to 275GB capacity. Notebook drives would run up to 500GB, while desktop systems could ship with single-drive storage totalling 2.5TB.